Monthly Archives: October 2010

Curing Alzheimer’s Disease

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st October 2010

Tweet Sandra Day O’Connor, Stanley Prusiner, and Ken Dychtwald published an Op-Ed in the New York Times on October 27, 2010 titled The Age of Alzheimer’s. O’Connor is a retired associate justice of the Supreme Court. Prusiner, received the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine and is the director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at…

You Can’t Make This Up

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th October 2010

Tweet The American Postal Workers Union internal election was postponed because thousands of ballots were lost in the mail. They should have voted online. The Federal Highway Administration has required that all street signs in the US be written in Clearview font by 2018. They’ve been studying this important issue for most of the century…

Proton Receptors and Acid Excretion

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th October 2010

Tweet Deletion of the pH Sensor GPR4 Decreases Renal Acid Excretion is a study published bu Sun, et al in the October 2010 Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. “Proton receptors are G protein-coupled receptors that accept protons as ligands and function as pH sensors. One of the proton receptors, GPR4, is relatively abundant…

Boris Godunov in HD

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th October 2010

Tweet The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov was telecast around the world Saturday October 23. This production has a complicated history. The German director Peter Stein was originally engaged to make his Met debut as its director. But he quit in a snit supposedly because the US government had engulfed his visa…

Why Beethoven is so Great

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd October 2010

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Tweet There’s nothing I can say about Beethoven that will in any way affect his Olympian stature other than to echo Verdi’s declaration that we must all bow before him. But if you want to see just how visceral his connection to all humanity is look at the video below.

Opera For Maniacs

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th October 2010

Tweet The title of this piece is a bit redundant. Opera lovers are without exception crazy. So opera is really for maniacs and no one else save those with extra time and money who think that an outing at the opera has a cultural context. These cultural aspirants fail to realize that they’re visiting the…

Joan Sutherland 1926-2010

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th October 2010

Tweet Joan Sutherland died Sunday, October 10. She was 83. No more superlatives than have been heaped on her are needed to commemorate her great talent and vocal accomplishments. She was a unique artist. Her many recordings speak more eloquently than any comments could. Below is the long duet that ends the first act of…

Das Rheingold in HD

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th October 2010

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Tweet On Saturday October 9 the Metropolitan Opera presented its first HD telecast of the 2010-11 season with its new production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the opera that opened the Met’s current season. Robert Lepage’s production which uses computerized projections, shifting platforms, and flashy lighting has attracted much attention. The set which is little more…

Two That Got Away

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd October 2010

Tweet I wrote this article 14 year ago. It is no longer online; so I decided to republish it here. A few months ago I wrote a piece about tenors. In it, I discussed the nine tenors who I thought were the best of this century. Obviously, I made a very subjective choice that many…

Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis and the FDA’s Warnings

Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st October 2010

Tweet There is an article (Change in Use of Gadolinium-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Studies in Kidney Disease Patients After US Food and Drug Administration Warnings: A Cross-sectional Study of Veterans Affairs Health Care System Data From 2005-2008 ) and an editorial (Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis and Gadolinium-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Does a US Food and Drug Administration…

About Neil Kurtzman

Neil A Kurtzman MD is the Grover E Murray Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. He has combined careers in clinical medicine, education, basic research, and administration for more than 30 years.